Advice: Scanning Old Pictures to Mac?

[ironjaw]

Hi All,

I've got some old photo albums lying around and before the originals fade with time I have decided to scan them to my Mac and store them in iPhoto.

1. Any advice on what's the best scanner and scanning resolution

2. Any good application I should look at?

Cheers

 

[termina3]

To get the highest quality I would consider outsourcing your scanning to someone... they'll have all the highest end equipment, which you won't want to buy for such a small project.

-T

 

[ironjaw]

That's a good idea, I will go and see what the prices are

 

[Heb1228]

You can get great quality scans from many scanners these days. I did the same thing you're talking about with my Epson RX500 (all-in-one). Did prints and slides and Epson's hardware photo restore capabilities were great for 20-year old slides. The biggest drawback was the time it took, but the results were perfectly acceptable as far as the quality of the scans.

Just don't skimp and buy a cheap scanner, something mid-range will do much better.

 

[Jovian9]

The Epson Perfection 4490 Photo Scanner is a very good scanner at a reasonable price. We used these in my last photography course to scan color and b&w negatives, as well as 3X5 prints, and slides. I then printed 8X10's out of the scans. Though I did use Photoshop to color balance/touch up/etc.

Before I quit using the scanner I took some negatives that I had from 16 years ago when I went to Washington D.C. and made prints from them. They turned out great even though I had never taken care of them.

 

[ScubaDuc]

I've gone with the Nikon Coolscan V and I am very happy with it. There are some issues with scanning negatives including scratches and color saturation. The Nikon touches up during the scanning process saving a lot of photoshop time

 

[netdog]

What resolution is best to use? How much resolution is actually in even a good print to be captured and useful in printing? (assuming that cropping and enlarging may be desirable where possible).

 

[termina3]

What resolution is best to use? How much resolution is actually in even a good print to be captured and useful in printing? (assuming that cropping and enlarging may be desirable where possible).

Highest possible.

 

[mahonmeister]

I'm trying to do the same thing. The biggest obstacle is the tedious process of scanning on a flatbed. I've been trying to find a photo feeder scanner that automates the process but I keep finding old products or really expensive ones.

Anyone know of a good quality scanner with a photo feeder for less then $250? Something like this: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,115427-page,1/article.html (that one is from 2004)

I've read so many stories on various forums about how some poor soul spends months scanning all their old photos manually one at a time. Come on now, where is the automation?

I'm not trying to hijack this thread, so I'll add some advice too.
-Any resolution above 300dpi is good. The higher it is, the slower the scan and larger the file. I've read that saving as a .tiff file is best because it uses loss-less compression unlike jpeg. Burn the images to a dvd and then import/convert them to a jpeg so that they don't fill up your hard drive. That way you will always have the original scan backed-up. Make 2 copies if you really want to be secure.
-Scan the negatives if possible. Then will have higher quality then the printed photo. There are scanner attachments for this purpose.
-Backup your data often!
-As for the software application, most scanners come with their own. I need to do a little more research to find a better alternative.

 

[ironjaw]

mahonmeister - That's great advice, I still have not found a good scanner - What I do have is multifunction HP2840 Laserjet printer [link]. It has a good scanner at 1200 x 1200 dpi and prints at Up to 600 x 600 dpi but I'm still convinced that a dedicated scanner with possibility of scanning negatives is the way to go.

Other than that I have been seduced by those midrange HP-all-in-one inkjet printers like the HP Photosmart C8180 All-in-One [link]with high scanning resolution and good printing quality, but I'm still not sure what's best...

 

[-hh]

As a temporary measure,

Plop down the album, open a page & take a photo of it with your current digital camera.

It won't be great resolution, but it prevents procrastination of never getting around to doing anything.


-hh